


What Plays at VidCon Stays at VidCon

by some_good_clean_fun



Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - No Girlfriends/No Wives, Angst and Humor, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bisexuality, Coming Out, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Mentions of Internalized Biphobia, Misunderstandings, Pillow Fights, VidCon YouTube Convention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-26
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:00:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26123890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/some_good_clean_fun/pseuds/some_good_clean_fun
Summary: Danny was going to be staying in Anaheim for VidCon. He glanced around the room. There were more unfamiliar faces than not, all within a 10 year age range, so he’d be surprised if they weren’t all here for the same reasons. And there, popping right into his peripheral vision, was Drew, looking just as out of sorts as Danny felt.
Relationships: Danny Gonzalez/Drew Gooden
Comments: 14
Kudos: 47





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I may need to add more tags as we go along. I have never been to VidCon so there are bound to be inaccuracies, but this whole story is highly fictionalized so let's say in this parallel world they're accuracies.

Danny hadn’t missed the intensity of the sun striking whiplash hot against his shoulder blades and tender neck in the two years he’d been absent from LA. He hadn’t missed the molasses slow traffic or the artificial niceties either, having to make enthusiastic small-talk with the Uber driver who seemed to want to know his entire backstory. He hadn’t missed the tourist traps, or the venues only real Los Angelenos knew about, or even the walking trails he’d discovered with Peanut.

But he didn’t hate being here again, wasn’t itching to escape. It was fine. Living in LA had never really worked. To be fair, he hadn’t made the conscious effort to ensure it could. But knowing he was only going to be here for less than a week made it so he wasn’t shell-shocked, searching for the exits. Yeah, he’d left LA with no small amount of bitterness, but the time apart had allowed the sweetness to linger in the back of his mind too. So here he was, rolling up to his hotel feeling relatively calm about it all. This wasn’t his first rodeo, wasn’t even his second, and maybe a cowboy would still want more than three goes to feel completely comfortable in the saddle, but at least he knew what would await. 

After successfully extracting himself from five more minutes of conversation, paying and tipping, Danny pushed his shades further up his nose, slung his backpack over his shoulder, and moved into the hotel foyer. He had no clue what room he was staying in. Eddy had booked everything, talking at length about the fun The Boys would have, making it sound overwhelmingly Wet Hot American Summer-esque if not Animal House-lite, and Danny had gone along with it, because, well, better to be an awkward nerd among other awkward nerds to deflect from his own inadequacies than strike out and display that shit on his own. 

He glanced around the room. There were more unfamiliar faces than not, all within a 10 year age range, so he’d be surprised if they weren’t all here for the same reasons. In the corner he could see Jarvis, whom he’d had many twitter conversations with and one passing wave across the Georgia Tech campus. Standing with a full-on entourage were a couple of semi-popular Vine stars he remembered but had never bothered to learn the names of. And there, popping right into his peripheral vision, was Drew, looking just as out of sorts as Danny felt. 

“Hey,” Danny said, shuffling closer.

Drew immediately perked up, reeled Danny in for a hug. “Hey. Good to see you, man. How are you?”

Danny should’ve been used to it by now, but he was always so surprised by how warmly and genuinely Drew greeted him when they crossed paths. For someone who had perfected ‘don’t look at me, don’t talk to me, and don’t you dare ask me a question’ vibes, Drew was effervescent with friends. 

“I’m good, you?”

“Nervous as fuck. I can do crowds, but crowds where there’s the potential that at least a quarter of the participants know me by sight if not by sound? Fuck, it’s horrendous.”

“I know exactly what you mean. I made a video about the Stokes twins two months ago and I’m pretty sure I saw them in the elevator when I walked in. The idea of them recognizing me is pants-destroyingly upsetting.”

Drew nodded, then gazed at Danny somewhat disconcertingly. “I saw that one. It’s not like you were nasty.”

“Drew, with full disrespect – I don’t trust you on a nice to nastiness scale.”

Drew grinned, not shark-like, but maybe a piranha; small-mouthed but still deadly. “Dick,” he said, tone full of affection. “Seen Gus and Eddy yet?”

“No. Seen Kurtis?”

“No.”

“So we wait?”

“Guess so.”

They stood for a few minutes shooting the shit, edging ever closer as the numbers around them multiplied. Danny was reminded of the parties he’d been forced to go to by J and Brendon, how he’d invariably stuck by one of them until he’d sunk a few drinks and loosened up. Danny didn’t think of himself as shy per se, but he also wasn’t the kind of guy to go up to a circle of strange people and start networking. Judging by the look on Drew’s face and the way he kept curving closer into Danny, he was the same way. 

Danny heard Eddy before he saw him, a bellowing, “My Boys,” echoing across the foyer. He and Drew shared a smile, before turning and walking toward Eddy and half a minute later, Gus. Danny shook hands, but Drew went for hugs all round, even with Danny again, which resulted in much back-slapping and playful poking. Drew was looking everywhere but into people’s eyes and Danny guessed this was a long-held defence mechanism kicking in.

“I’ll get our room keys,” Eddy said, wandering away as quickly as he’d arrived.

“Do we need to go pay, or?” Danny asked, gazing after his back.

“Not until we leave. We could only book two rooms, so we figured me and Eddy would share one and you two the other,” Gus explained, already making eye-contact with and waving at eight different people nearby. 

“What about Kurtis?” Drew asked before Danny could.

“He didn’t tell you? He and Jenna came two days early. They’re already set up.”

By the time they had their keys and had dropped off their belongings, it was time for lunch. Danny had no strong opinions either way what he wanted to eat, so he went with the flow. He’d texted J that he was in town and was waiting on a meet-up time and location. He snapped a few pics and sent them to the family chat. This was always the most uncomfortable part, the lull before the convention. At least during VidCon itself there were panels to attend, and meet-and-greets, and a constant flurry of activity to occupy the mind. Beforehand it was all anxiety and too many thoughts swirling around. 

They caught up with Kurtis and Jenna at Chipotle, wherein Danny ribbed them mercilessly for not telling them their change of plans. 

“It wasn’t orchestrated,” Kurtis said, shrugging. “It wasn’t like I had the world’s tiniest violin joined by a cello, some woodwind instruments and a timpani or anything. A tiny lil orchestra playing while Jenna and me booked in. It just happened.”

“And yet somehow I still feel like I could hear the music playing while the plan formed in your mind. Bow chikka wow wow,” Drew countered.

“I forced him to let me come,” Jenna said. “I’ve heard how rowdy you all get when left to your own devices.”

Danny glanced over at Gus, who was absorbed with his phone. “Which is to say not rowdy at all because we’re all checking our twitter feeds _on_ those devices.”

“Exactly. You needed someone to show you how to have some fun. By the way, we’ve all been invited to a party tonight and you have to come.”

“Oh Jesus Christ the horror,” Drew mock-whispered.

Several hours later they were back in their hotel room and Danny was napping while Drew showered. His original intention had been to catch up on his socials, but he’d started dozing off after about five minutes, had rested his phone on his chest, and the next second he was being awoken by Drew’s towel being dumped on his head. 

“Your turn.”

Danny pulled the towel away, peered across at Drew, who was shirtless, placing clothes on his bed like he was deciding between them. 

“Go for the dark blue button-down. It’ll bring out your eyes,” Danny suggested. 

“It’s not like I’m looking to attract anyone tonight.”

“Oh okay, then go for one of the ratty old T-shirts you’d normally wear.”

Drew selected one, slipped it on. Danny watched him, not bothering to get up yet. Drew’s hair was all over the place, still damp and therefore darker than usual, bringing out his angles. His skin was pink from the heat of the shower and even though he was sitting hunched in on himself, he was all long-limbs and straight lines. Danny gazed at him, felt a familiar stir in his stomach. Drew put on his glasses and picked up his phone. 

“Are you showering any time soon?” Drew asked after another minute or so of Danny not so covertly staring at him. “Or are you planning on stinking up the whole joint?”

“I’m a Little Stinker for life,” Danny returned, gathering his cleaning gear and towel and stepping into the bathroom. 

He washed the day of travel and social anxiety away, tried not to think about the fact Drew had been in this shower cubicle not even ten minutes before. That kind of thinking led to Danny having even more dangerous thoughts and he didn’t have the time. When he’d cleaned up, close-shaved and dried off, he did the same as Drew, sliding on the same underwear and pants but going into his backpack for a new top.

“You should wear the red. It’ll bring out your rosacea,” Drew murmured, smirking at Danny from his bed.

“I’m not looking to attract anyone tonight,” Danny said back, imitating Drew to the best of his ability. 

He wore green instead. 

*

The party was in full swing by the time they’d all gotten there. There were pockets of creators all sitting or standing in their own little cliques. Danny observed it all carefully, musing to himself that he couldn’t criticize too harshly since he was definitely doing the same thing. He bought everyone a round of drinks, had three beers within the first hour of arriving at the party so as to scare his inhibitions away, but still found himself clinging onto Drew’s side. Or maybe Drew was clinging on to him, it was hard to tell. Kurtis and Jenna were dancing. Gus had met up with one of his gamer friends that Danny didn’t know. And Eddy was nearby talking to a woodworker who happened to have the same management company as him.

“Who’s your dream collab?” Danny asked Drew, because they’d spent at least an hour talking about basketball, Danny had complained about variable frame rates until he’d exhausted his annoyance, and he was worried Drew was about to ask him if he’d attempted to play Kingdom Hearts II since the last time they’d talked games. He hadn’t.

“I don’t know. The real Drew Gooden?”

“I’m talking about an already established YouTuber.”

“Oh, that’s easy. You,” Drew said, taking a swig of beer and knocking into Danny’s shoulder.

Danny laughed. “We’ve already collaborated.”

“Yeah, so I know it’ll go well and I won’t end up wanting to kill either one of us. Why, aren’t I your dream collab?”

Danny knew the answer immediately, but pretended to ponder it. “I guess I see what you mean. Filming with you reminds me of when I used to make sketch videos with my brother and our friends. We just kind of instinctively know what comedic beats we wanna hit and whatnot. We, like, speak a common language.”

Drew gazed at him. “Right.”

“But sometimes I wish I was still tight with Cody.”

“Okay, fuck you too.”

Danny waved his hand around. “It’d be a throuple. I wouldn’t leave you out.”

Drew finished his beer, banged his bottle on the nearest table. “Remind me to never be emotionally vulnerable in your direction again.”

“If I remember, I’ll remind you.”

They wandered away from each other eventually; Drew toward some other Orlando creators, Danny with Mikaela and Diana. Danny ended up dancing at one point. He’s not sure how. Through the haze of several beers and a spirit or two, he found himself grinding with a couple of acquaintances. It was fun. There was a holla in his direction and he grinned as he really got into the rhythm of the music. J turned up just as Danny was contemplating texting to ask the others what their evacuation plans were, so there was an hour or two, or it might’ve been three, where they talked about all the things it felt stupid to talk about online. Danny missed J and he told him so, repeatedly.

By the time Danny had joined up with the group again, he was feeling fairly nauseous and J handed him over to Drew, who hiked his arm up around his shoulder and wound a hand around his waist. It felt good. Warm and sticky but in the comfortable way. He thinks he might’ve said that, because Drew scrunched his nose up at him adorably and murmured, “Have you had any water?”

“I’ve dranken a lot of fluids,” Danny said, frowning because that didn’t sound quite right but he didn’t know how else to phrase it. 

Drew uncapped a water bottle and pressed it meaningfully into Danny’s hand. Danny realized he was thirsty as fuck, so he gulped down half the bottle and passed it back to Drew with a thanks. 

He didn’t recall getting back to the hotel or into bed, but it must’ve happened somehow, because Danny woke up wearing his boxer briefs and T-shirt with a throbbing headache and the taste of rusty nails in his mouth.

“How’re you feeling?” Drew asked, sounding concerned.

“Like an absolute dumpster fire,” Danny admitted, looking over at him. 

Drew looked fresh-faced and handsome as usual, sitting on the edge of his bed. Danny could tell from the rasp of his voice and the grit of his eyes that he himself must look like total ass. There was a glass of water on the side table and Danny drank from it gratefully.

“I know you probably don’t wanna hear this, but we’re going out for breakfast in fifteen and you should definitely come.”

“All right. Just let me die for another six or seven minutes like whatever crawled into my mouth.”

There was a distant thump and then the mattress dipped. Fingers started caressing Danny’s temples and he butted into it like an overgrown puppy. Drew’s fingers were the perfect softness, and he rubbed at the right tempo, massaging away the frantic throbbing of Danny’s brain. Danny still did not want to open his eyes. The light that was coming through his lids was piercing enough.

“Amanda used to do this for me whenever I overindulged.”

“Tell Amanda she’s best person in the world.”

“I will. Do I say it’s from you or me?”

“Both. Is she still marrying that guy?”

“Rick. Yeah.” Drew sounded sad, but not devastated. Danny wanted to think about it more, but thinking caused too much pain.

“Then tell her she’s crazy because she’s missing out on marrying another best person in the world.”

“That makes no sense, Danny.”

“Best person is a tier, not a singular entity.”

“If it weren’t for the hangover, I’d be convinced you were still drunk.”

“Ugh.”

After a minute, Drew stopped rubbing, patting Danny gently on the back. “Time to get up, dude.”

It took another full minute before Danny was successful in reaching anything close to resembling vertical. He had a scalding hot 2 minute shower, brushed his teeth twice, and swapped his itching, gritty contacts out for his glasses. He’d taken clothes into the bathroom and he pulled them on to the best of his ability. In the mirror he didn’t look as bad as he felt, but that wasn’t saying a lot, because he felt like he’d been trodden on ninety-two times by football players wearing soccer cleats. 

Drew gave him a commiserating smile when Danny emerged, fully dressed.

“Thanks,” Danny said. “For, you know, everything. Taking care of me and shit.”

“I’m not a complete monster.”

“No. But, like, I imagine I was really fucking annoying to deal with. So.” Danny gestured in the air. 

“Good point. It’s okay. Let’s just say I made you write a legally binding I O U in the early hours of the morning.”

Danny shook his head, then immediately regretted it. “I guess I should be thankful I still have my soul?”

“I never said what the I O U was for, did I? Come on, everyone’s waiting already.”

*

VidCon while hung-over was still an incredible experience. Once he had some greasy food, coffee and about two gallons of water inside of him, Danny felt considerably better, and he was able to engage with other creators and fans. There were a few Q&As he had scheduled, and even though he was well acquainted with how the YouTube algorithm worked, he wanted to learn more about the TikTok algorithm – not because he wanted to figure out how to work the system, but more for his own edification. He was going to continue to steer clear of creating TikTok content. He’d learned his lesson with Vine and there was no doubt in his mind that TikTok was the brain slug version of the app he’d once loved. 

Danny flashed back to the first time he’d been here in Anaheim, tagging along with Chris like it was bring your son to work day. He was more secure now. He’d attained the following he’d striven for. But every time he turned around there was a new creator who was three times more popular than he was that he’d never even heard of before. And it was honestly disorienting. 

“This is the coolest,” Kurtis said, catching up with him after one of the Industry Expert keynotes. Danny remembered this was his first time at a bigger convention, let alone VidCon. 

“Yeah, it’s great,” Danny agreed, because when it came down to it, he really did enjoy being surrounded by other creators who knew the trials and tribulations of crafting online content. Being around others with similar aspirations was inspiring. 

“Do you think I’ll ever actually be a featured creator?”  


“I don’t see why not. Both of your channels have been growing exponentially and you have a loyal fanbase. I’ve known people who have a smaller sub count than you who’ve gotten panels and Q&As devoted to them. It might be as easy as inquiring with your manager.”

“I was talking hypothetically, but I like that you took it to a totally pragmatic place.”

“It’s not like you only have 456 followers, Kurtis. It didn’t sound rhetorical.”

“I realize that it must’ve sounded that way to your robotically efficient brain, but I promise I was goofing around. Are you sure you didn’t go to business school?”

“Is Danny talking analytics and the inaccuracies of measuring views versus watch-time rates again?”, Drew asked, coming up on Danny’s other side. 

“Yes, how do you get him to stop?”

“I usually distract him,” Drew said, glancing at Danny, which had Danny envisaging all the ways Drew could distract him.

“You both can only wish I would give you my educated analyses on views, watch-time and click-throughs,” Danny mumbled. “I get higher numbers than either of you.”

“Oops! We poked the bear one too many times and now he’s a sad widdle teddy,” Kurtis crowed. 

“Considering this conversation started with me being a supportive friend, you can fuck right back to Kurtistown.”

“You know what? I will. Because that’s where I’m the mayor and you have to be nice to me.”

Kurtis walked off, presumably to another panel, but he turned around and walked backward for a while, waving goodbye with two extended fingers. Danny flipped him back, shaking his head and grinning. 

“You want lunch?” Drew asked.

“I could eat,” Danny answered. He walked with Drew to go find food. “How’s your day been so far?”

“Good. I attended a practical editing workshop.”

“About editing for pace?”

“Yeah.”

Danny grabbed hold of Drew’s arm, steered him out of the way of some vloggers. “I attended something like that my first year here.”

“I thought you already knew everything about editing?”

“Admittedly, it was more confirmation than new knowledge.”

“Of course.”

“Why am I getting the distinct impression both you and Kurtis think I’m an arrogant dick?”

“We don’t think that!” Drew said, stopping still regardless of the flow of people and shaking his head vigorously. “We know it.” Danny frowned at him, lightly punched his arm. Drew wrapped that arm around Danny’s shoulders and tugged him tight against his side, giving him a noogie with his free fist. Danny did not feel like wriggling free, not even a tiny bit. “You have more experience than we do and you’ve been more driven when it comes to figuring this shit out, that’s all. I can only speak for myself, but sometimes the best way to deal with my own inadequacies is to mock your overwhelming competence.”

Danny wrapped his own arm around Drew’s waist and kept them walking. “I hope you realize any time you ever try to shut me up in the future I’m gonna mouth ‘inadequacy’ at you and continue talking.”

“That sounds no different than normal.”

*

They attended another party that night, though Danny vowed to stick to one beer and one beer only. They were in a quieter venue; somewhere they could actually talk and be listened to, and there was a wider group of creators sitting around. It reminded Danny of Camp Unplug. The conversation had somehow gotten to weird fan interactions and Danny didn’t have any horror stories, so he listened on, increasingly more thankful that the scariest encounter he’d had was when one dude yelled at him across a crowded auditorium. 

Jarvis, who Danny still hadn’t gotten the chance to talk to one-on-one was talking about parasocial relationships and the dangers of fans feeling entitled to attention, content and personal details. He made excellent points and Danny liked how even-handed he was being.

“People write fanfiction about some creators, like Rhett and Link, and Dan and Phil,” Chris pointed out, shaking his head, a tinge of bewildered disgust on his face.

“Yeah, but can you blame them?” Mikaela said. “People enjoy their dynamic and they want more of it, so they make it up for themselves. It’s not that different from any other fanfic.”

“Except they’re making claims about real people,” Drew countered.

“I think most people probably know they’re not writing reality,” Danny said. “That fic about us? No one could think that the author genuinely thought we’d get embroiled with the _Pail_ brothers or that I’d get impregnated.”

“Wait, what? People have written fic about you?” Chris asked, incredulous.

“More than once.” 

“And it’s so stupid, because we don’t have any chemistry. People just like the idea of us together because we’re two white guys who have generic okayish looks.”

“Speak for yourself. _I_ have been reliably informed that I’m a smoke-show across the entire gender spectrum.”

“Like, ‘ahhh, put smoke in my eyes so I don’t have to gaze upon that abnormally young face any longer’?”

“Fuck you and your asymmetricality. You’ll never know what it’s like to be one of the beautiful people.”

“It’s asymmetry you dumb, beautiful idiot.”

“Oh yeah, you guys have no chemistry at all. What were those fans thinking?” Mikaela interjected and Danny realized he and Drew had been staring each other down for a hot minute, ignoring everyone else in the group. 

Danny shifted in his seat, shrugged. “Anyway, I think once you start forgetting what it’s like to be a fan, that’s when you start to slip down the slope of developing a raging ego. Like, yes, some fans totally go way too far, but they’re typically a minority, and I think part of the fan culture you cultivate is down to your choices and what you model. And please understand I’m talking about fans, not trolls, provocateurs, and harassers. That’s a whole other can of gummy worms.”

There was a chorus of agreements and nods. 

“What exactly have you been modeling that landed us with m-preg and softcore porn?” Drew asked, for Danny’s ears only.

“Wouldn’t _you_ like to know,” Danny replied in his best 1930s news announcer voice, raising his eyebrows comically high several times like a vaudevillian.

*

They headed back to the hotel room early. Danny still felt a bit like shit microwaved on high for forty-five seconds, and Drew used that as an excuse to also recharge away from the pressing mob of people. 

“I’m exhausted but I can’t sleep,” Danny said into the dim void of the room. Drew was playing some game on his phone, but he stopped and turned over toward Danny as soon as he spoke.

“Same.”

There was a moment of silence that stretched on. Drew sighed.

“What’re you thinking about?”

“You want an honest answer or a fun one?”

“Honest.”

“The nature and nurture of creativity and how envious I get of other people who seem to practically spew ideas every single week.”

“The fun one.”

“Whether I’d have a height advantage over you in a pillow fight, or whether you’d have a strength advantage over me because you actually work out.”

Danny sat up on his bed cross-legged, clutching one of the two pillows to his chest. “There’s an easy way to find out the answer, babyyy,” he said. He surreptitiously took hold of the corner of the other pillow behind his back, ready to swing and attack. 

Drew mirrored him, lightning quick, narrowing his eyes as he discarded his glasses. 

The first volley was Danny’s. He was impatient, waiting for Drew to commit to a movement. Danny launched himself onto his feet and crashed Drew around the stomach with one pillow, while over-arming it with the other with an aim to strike his head. Drew, however, had stronger reflexes than he anticipated and rolled away and up, barreling Danny back onto his bed with a two-pronged attack. 

Danny wiggled out from Drew’s blows and darted across the room to the closet. He’d seen spare pillows there when he’d been stashing away the blanket that’d been on the end of his bed for some inexplicable reason, and he quickly gathered them together so he now had four weapons at his disposal. Drew yelled about him being a cheater, but they hadn’t established any set rules and as far as Danny was concerned he needed maximum fire power. 

They fought for another five minutes, dodging each other’s blows and never allowing the other to come too close. They each landed a shot by throwing the pillows, but they, of course, ended up as ammunition for the enemy.

Eventually, Danny sacrificed one pillow as a decoy, distracting Drew’s attention to his left as he feinted to his right and walloped him across the head twice. Drew did some kind of complicated kick where he collected Danny’s legs and simultaneously pulled him onto his bed again, pinning his shins and slamming one of his pillows right on Danny’s face. He stared down at him with a feral grin, strands of hair flopping onto his forehead, and clearly took great pleasure at steering the fight with a constant barrage. He’d stolen all of Danny’s pillows at one point, but also kindly let go of them after, so Danny was able to grab hold and use them as defense. Danny bucked up until he had Drew’s center of gravity working against him and flipped them over, pummeling Drew with short, sharp smacks. 

Drew wriggled beneath him, but Danny had settled on his hips and lower abdomen, was tilted forward so that his weight pinned him down. They were both sweaty and breathing heavily, Drew’s pale skin flushed and gleaming. Danny became startlingly aware of the pulse rushing through his veins, the compulsion he had to bend down further and kiss the salt off Drew’s lips. Drew was gazing up at him like he was waiting for him to close the gap between them, eyes flicking from Danny’s eyes to his mouth.

There was a pounding on the door and then Eddy’s voice calling, “Stop sleeping, you lil bitches! We’ve brought the party to you.”

Danny startled back, almost falling straight off the bed. He brushed his clothes down, glanced at Drew, who was staring up at the ceiling, still panting. Danny picked up two of the pillows before he answered the door, dumping them on his bed. He hoped he didn’t look as guilty as he felt, affecting a half-asleep expression, lowered eye-lids and loosened jaw. 

“Oh shit, you were really asleep? Sorry dudes,” Eddy said, inviting himself in along with Gus, Kurtis and Jenna. 

Drew was sitting up against the headboard of the bed, two pillows propped behind him. He’d put his glasses back on and was casually scrolling through his phone.

“What’s up?” he said, rough voiced like he’d only just woken up. 

“We thought you were escaping the large crowds. Didn’t realize you’re actually a couple of old geezers,” Kurtis mocked.

Danny smiled down at the carpet, glanced at Drew kitty-cornered. Drew was similarly amused, judging by the raise of his eyebrow. He met Danny’s eyes and looked away quickly, also smiling. 

“We can let you get back to dreaming if you want,” Gus said.

“No, we can hang,” Danny replied. Drew had already shifted so he could reach down and pick up one of his shoes. It didn’t take a genius to realize they were on the same wavelength.

They went to Kurtis and Jenna’s suite because it was bigger and after a long back-and-forth decided to play ‘What Do You Meme?’. The fact that Kurtis had brought five different types of games was infinitely mockable, but it was also useful when everyone was wired but brain-dead. Danny grabbed a soda and settled onto a dining room chair, part of the group but separate too. He had to stop himself from staring at Drew, willing himself not to track him in his peripheral vision. When he closed his eyes he could still remember the feeling of Drew beneath him, the uncertainty of those seconds they’d shared stretching on and on. 

“Wow, you really are beat,” Eddy said. “You can go back if you want, man, no one will blame you.”

“Nah, I’m good,” Danny replied. “I’m tired but suffering from insomnia, you know?”

The game started and it was fun and mind-relieving. Danny was able to get into it and block any other traitorous thoughts from taking his attention.

They played for a few hours, until everyone started yawning in forty-second intervals, starting a chain-reaction. Drew announced he was going back to bed and Danny agreed. They didn’t talk on the way back to their room, nor as they prepared to sleep again, but Danny couldn’t help himself once he was tucked under the sheets, his head achy.

“Night, Drew.”

Drew’s voice came back muffled. “G’night.”

Danny was surprised, but he actually fell asleep nearly straight away, and didn’t wake up until his alarm chimed the next morning. Of course, every single dream featured Drew front and center, and even though none of them were unsafe for work, he still felt guilty when he got up and looked over at Drew to find him lying on his back with his pillow over his head like he hadn’t gotten to sleep until the early hours of the morning and had had to block out the sun.

*

The day was buck wild. First up, Danny had a 2 hour meet-and-greet scheduled that stole his focus. He truly did enjoy interacting with his fans, especially when it was all planned out meticulously and the expectations were the shortest of chats and a photo op. He was always kind of surprised by how young some of his fans were, because he mostly pitched his content to people his age while criticizing creators who pitched to a younger audience, but it was always heartening to see them with their parents. It was especially great when those parents thanked him for being a voice of reason for their impressionable teens.

After that, he’d agreed to shoot a few YouTuber Reacts videos. They went well. Even though he didn’t have the same level of control he was used to, it was such a similar situation to his day job that he mostly enjoyed it and he looked forward to viewing the vids when they were uploaded after VidCon. He was always fascinated by what other people edited out or highlighted, especially when multiple people were interviewed. One of his favorite things of essentially being his own director, editor and producer was the level of oversight he had. But sometimes he missed the more collaborative approach to video-making he’d experienced with his friends when he was younger, or working with Team Internet and Corridor Crew after college. 

He had lunch with the guys from Corridor Crew after bumping into Wren. He regularly watched their videos so he had some idea what they were up to, but it was super interesting learning all of the background knowledge that was a little too real for the whole world to know. It amazed him that he was getting anywhere near the vicinity of their subscriber count, because when he’d worked with them he’d had _some_ success, but he hadn’t anticipated how big he’d get. 

By the late afternoon Danny was shattered. He was physically, psychologically and profoundly _done_. He wandered Anaheim for a while, people-watching. It was one of his favorite past-times, examining other people’s tics and mannerisms, listening in on their conversations and patterns of speaking. It’s something he’d done since he was young, one of the ways he’d created his characters, when he’d done more character-based stuff. 

It was still light out when he went back to the hotel, hoping to have a couple hours to himself before dinner. 

Drew was already there, lying on his bed, his eyes closed but his breathing pattern revealing he was awake. 

“Hey, are you okay, Drew?” Danny asked, crouching down by the bed. 

Drew blinked a few times, looked at Danny for half a second. “I’m okay. It’s a lot, is all. Being surrounded by all of these other people who know what they’re doing when nine days out of ten I feel like I know nothing.”

He shuffled over on his bed and gestured with his hand. Danny lay down tentatively on the edge, locking his legs crossed so he wouldn’t take up too much space. He gazed at the side of Drew’s face, the fine lines and the dark circles around his eyes.

“Last night, you said you were thinking about creativity…” Danny offered.

“It always seems to come so easy to other people. Being creative. They have a voice and they know how they want to use it. I don’t feel that way. Every idea I have always seems dragged out between my clenched teeth.”

“I think, as creators, we don’t talk about how much work it is, to _have_ ideas. It’s never simply one thing. An idea is built on experiences and observations and letting them percolate in our minds. It’s narrowing in on the most important parts and viewing it from multiple perspectives to find the one that fits you. An idea is… a culmination. Think about all the other commentary YouTubers, what do we have in common?”

“We’re ninety-six percent middle-class cisgender white dudes.”

Danny nodded, snorted a laugh. “Sure. But also we have sub-genres within the commentary branch we cover, right? I feel like you don’t do that enough. You don’t rely on having a series you can go back to, over and over again. You’ll do like two videos on a topic and then bounce.”

“I don’t wanna get repetitive.”

“I know. And I admire that, I totally do, but you need to be kinder to yourself. I have my standard videos I’ll go to for brand deals so that when I wanna flex my creative muscles I can give that process the time it deserves. You’re putting yourself under too much pressure.”

Drew tilted his head to eyeball him. “Aren’t diamonds formed under pressure?”

“They’re also a huge marketing gimmick. Give me pearls instead, something built around a tiny kernel of grit over time in the viscera of a clam.”

“Gross.”

Danny knocked Drew’s elbow. “Stop willfully demeaning my metaphors.”

“How long ‘til we gotta show up downstairs?”

Danny checked his phone, groaned. “An hour twenty. Every year I forget how full on this shit gets.”

“You wanna nap?”

“Fuck yeah.”

Danny half-expected Drew to kick him out of the bed, but he wrangled the sheet until it was up to their middles and closed his eyes again. And even though Danny thought it should be difficult to fall asleep next to the guy he’d seriously contemplated kissing not 24 hours before, it was shockingly easy to slip into slumber with the constant inhale and exhale beside him and the heat of skin near skin.

*

The next day was hotter than even the first had been. Danny wore his lightest button-down, an off-white covered with little pineapples, and he still felt sweat gathering in the small of his back. His sunglasses slid down his nose whenever he was outside and he’d refilled his water bottle twice by 11 am. There were tired convention-goers left, right, and center. Dinner the night before had been good, but it had gone on way too long, and everyone Danny bumped into from his friendship group was pre-yawn, mid-yawn, or post-yawn. Danny decided some liquid concentrated caffeine courage was needed and smashed two energy drinks that then set him jiggling his leg whenever he sat down during the day and had him talking about a beat too fast. 

The last day of VidCon was always the strangest day of VidCon. The creators and industry experts were tired. Many of the fans were hyped up. There was the ever-present sense that the convention had gone on too long and yet not nearly enough had been covered. 

Danny kind of loved it. 

He attended an exclusive event that was only for other creators managed by his management team, wherein he acquired a goodie-bag full of useless and useful items. He bought merch from a few other creators – he always liked to wait until the last day to do that so he felt like he was helping others eliminate stock without taking away from fans who didn’t have as many connections as he could wield, if he ever bothered. He caught up with Brendon for a few hours and listened to his tall tales and wild excursions. And he only thought about Drew forty-seven percent of the time. 

The temperature didn’t go down when the sun set, so back at the hotel Danny undid his top two buttons and flapped his hem up and down. He was in Kurtis and Jenna’s suite, waiting for everyone to arrive so they could go out for one last dinner as a whole group. Eddy had booked their two hotel rooms to extend for another two days, citing the crush of exiting conventioneers as reason why, but Kurtis and Jenna had arrived early and planned to leave early too. 

He stood chatting with Kurtis when Drew rocked up. He must have gone back to their room before joining them, because he was wearing the dark blue button-down and had a damp strand of hair clinging to his forehead. Danny sipped his water, drinking the image in. Drew began talking with Gus about a game that hadn’t yet been released. Danny didn’t hear the precise words, only his tone; by turns facetious, excited, knowledgeable and curious. Danny tried to zero his focus back on Kurtis, who was telling him about his favorite parts of the con, but it was difficult to ignore Drew on the other side of the room, especially the couple of times Danny turned to see Drew already watching him. 

“Folks,” Kurtis said, clapping his hands. “It’s time to head out.”

“Don’t use your YouTuber voice on us,” Drew chastised. “Makes me feel like one of the unknown masses, a cardboard cut-out of a person.”

“Did anyone hear that? I’ve, uh, filtered out any spam.”

“Just to show you how annoying it is, I’m gonna call you Greg all night, see how you like it,” Danny said, deciding to back Drew in the petty argument rather than Kurtis because he thought it held more comedic potential. 

“You know, you don’t still have to be _on_ all the time,” Jenna said. “It’s okay to leave your personas behind.”

“But what if someone takes him?” Danny mock-whined. “I worked so hard to build up his portfolio.”

“Persona?” Drew questioned, mock-indignant. “You think _I_ have a persona? I’m the most au-fucking-thentic YouTuber out there.”

Danny snickered, giving Drew a smile, and Drew faltered for a second, almost tripping over his own feet.

The meal was delightful. The high of the convention was mixed with exhaustion and the relief that it was over. Danny had somehow gotten placed across the table from Drew and he found himself constantly sharing his reactions to the conversations around them. Kurtis would say something hilarious and they’d grin at each other. Eddy would start a discussion about Twitch and whatever Drew said would be directed at Danny too.  
At the end of the night, Gus and Eddy decided they were going off to party, but Kurtis and Jenna had an early flight, so chose to be responsible adults and go sleep. 

“You wanna head back after one more drink?” Drew asked in the kind of tone a person would use if they thought they were being an inconvenience.

“Ahuh,” Danny confirmed, nodding vigorously. “I’m ecstatic you suggested it, to be honest.”

“Oh good. It isn’t that I haven’t had an awesome time…”

“No, I know. It takes a while to process everything and decompress.”

“Yeah.”

They caught a Lyft back to the hotel because Kurtis and Jenna had already abandoned them, chatting aimlessly about the different experiences they’d had and encounters they’d made. Drew had filmed some YouTuber Reacts videos too and they compared notes. It sounded like they’d given several similar answers and Danny wondered if the editors would play into that or not.

In their room once more, Drew turned around to start the air con and Danny started unbuttoning his shirt because it was hot as hell and he needed some cool air against his skin. Drew had seen him shirtless on a few occasions, so he didn’t think he had to ask. 

When Drew swiveled he stopped stock still and gazed. “Hey,” he said, quiet against the hum that had started up.

“Hey,” Danny replied, gazing at the Adam’s apple bobbing in Drew’s throat.

They inched closer. 

Drew slowly, tentatively, cupped his hand around Danny’s jaw. Danny returned the action, leaning up to bridge the gap. 

The shock of Drew’s lips against Danny’s was a welcome one, like cool ocean spray against heated skin. Danny’s eyes fluttered closed and he pushed deeper into the kiss, angling his head so he could move the way he wanted. He couldn’t deny that he’d been thinking about this during the entire convention, but he hadn’t _anticipated_ it. Danny moaned lowly as he pressed their bodies together, Drew’s shirt a gentle rasp against his torso.


	2. Chapter 2

Danny had kissed guys before, but not with any true meaning. It had been pranks, dares, and teenage experimentation. He’d enjoyed himself and he hadn’t regretted it, but it had been nothing like this. Kissing Drew felt _right_. 

Drew kissed like he had a lot to say and not enough time to say it. He was focused and determined, but roving too, pressing Danny up against the wall and sliding his hands over his waist to anchor him. Danny coaxed him to slow down, responding to his fervor with slow, drugging kisses that tasted syrupy sweet. Drew pulled away for a second, sucked in a deep breath, then returned to kissing Danny with more precision. He sucked on Danny’s lower lip, opened his mouth more so Danny could slip his tongue inside. 

They made out for an indeterminate amount of time before moving to the bed. Danny had the overwhelming sensation that they couldn’t get close enough, unbuttoning Drew’s shirt with awkward fumbles and blurred vision. There was an inch of space between them and it felt the same distance as when they were miles apart. He wanted to tuck himself tight against Drew, meld to all his sharp corners, press them together so it’d be hard to tell where one ended and the other began. 

When he finally felt the heat of Drew’s skin against his own he sighed in relief, shifting his weight so he could lay on top of him.

Drew maneuvered Danny’s sleeves, pushing them off his shoulders. Danny helped him, wriggling free of the cloth and tossing it across the room. He returned to kissing Drew with intent, humming when he found a way to make him arch up and gasp. 

“You wanna?” Danny queried, placing his hand on Drew’s belt buckle meaningfully. He looked into his eyes and saw a reflection of the warmth in the air.

“Yeah,” Drew said, soft-voiced. 

He tried to help, but it became more of a hindrance, their fingers colliding and blocking the way. Danny eventually pressed Drew’s wrist to the bed, making a tutting noise, and loosened Drew’s belt and jeans successfully. 

It didn’t take long for them to completely discard their clothes. Drew’s twin bed was small, but Danny liked that, it gave him licence to be creative in configuring their limbs. He gazed down at Drew from his vantage point, admiring.

Drew was a contrast in hard edges and gentle curves, his muscles wiry and his belly soft. The dusting of hair on his chest and abdomen was light blond, glimmering in the electric glow of the room. His shoulders weren’t as broad as Danny’s, but still strong-looking, just like his arms. His legs were long and lean, one knee bent as Danny settled into the narrow vee between. 

But it was his expression that captured Danny the most; the expectation, the suspense, the watchful uncertainty.

“You sure are a generic okayish looking guy,” Danny said, to break the tension.

Drew laughed, covering his mouth with his hand. He shook his head against the pillow, mussing up his hair even more. “At least I don’t have pepperoni nipples.”

“I have perfectly normal nipples!”

“Ahuh? Lemme see about that,” Drew said, flexing up and taking his right nipple into his mouth.

Danny squirmed. It tickled and the sensation went straight to his dick. 

“Mmmm, pretty salty,” Drew intoned, raising his eyebrow. “A little peppery too? A hint of spice?”

“Fuck off.”

“I’m trying.”  


The joke had had its desired effect. Drew relaxed into Danny’s next touches, craning up and being more forceful in how he placed Danny, moving until their legs were interleaved, half-hard cocks aligned. Danny tilted his head to the side, gazed as they slid against one another, nothing but skin and sweat to help them on their way. 

Danny bent down to kiss Drew again only to find Drew already pushing up and they knocked noses as they explored each other’s mouths. Danny licked at the cupid’s bow of Drew’s upper lip, pressed for deeper entry. The barely-there rasp of Drew’s stubble caught against Danny’s like sandpaper. They rocked their hips experimentally, finding the right tempo and groove. Drew spat into his hand and stroked Danny’s cock, a welcome wetness that made the slide even more slippery. Drew had calluses on his fingertips from playing guitar and Danny loved it, the feel of his hand as he jacked him off, made him hard.

When he was getting close to feeling the heat and tingle of an orgasm approaching, Danny stopped Drew’s persistent, rhythmic stroking.

“Kinda wanna see if I can come just from us rubbing together,” Danny said, intertwining his fingers with Drew’s.

“Okay,” Drew mumbled, obviously confused. He frowned, quizzical. It was so adorable that Danny couldn’t help but kiss the furrow between his brows, wanted to feel the expression against his lips.

He wanted to catalog all the sensations, but it was difficult to think straight. The musky scent of sweat combined with the freshness of Drew’s cologne. The slick sounds of their bodies merged with their heavy breathing. The paleness of Drew’s chest was offset by the pink blush across his cheeks. It was beautiful, a barrage of stimuli that built pressure in Danny’s lower belly that spread across his entire body. 

“Can I?” Danny asked, hiking up Drew’s leg against his side when Drew moaned an assent, tipped his head back until the tender, thin skin in the hollow of his neck was exposed.

Danny swiveled his hips, gathering speed. Drew was rock hard against him, dick hard and heavy. 

It was easy, like this. Easy and hot, Drew’s hands coming to rest on his ass to give him a push. Danny surged forward, increasing speed until he found the perfect tempo, canting his hips again and again and again. 

“ _Oh_ ,” Drew whispered.

“Ahuh,” Danny replied, lost in the moment, scrunching his eyes closed.

Drew’s hands were gripped onto his cheeks, pushing and pulling. Danny’s cock was nestling into the cut of his hip. The pressure built until Danny couldn’t stand it anymore, waiting for everything to start cascading, bubbling out of him. 

Drew came with a shocky shudder, Danny following shortly thereafter. Drew banged his head against the headboard, gave a low-voiced, ‘Ow’, so Danny reached up and petted him. 

In the calm of the come down they shifted until they lay side-by-side, legs entangled, stickiness cooling between them.

“So, that was a thing that just happened,” Drew said, stretching his arms above his head and shaking his right leg.

“You say that to all your lovers?”

“Don’t call yourself my _lover_.”

“Fine. Paramours? Inamoratos? Sweethearts? Darlings?”

Drew smushed his hand over Danny’s face, so Danny licked his palm. Drew flinched back, waving his hand around while making sounds of disgust. 

“Dude, we just swapped a whole bunch of bodily fluids. It’s a little late to be grossed out by my saliva.”

Drew nodded sarcastically, leaned in and nipped Danny on the jaw. “I don’t say a lot to people I’ve had sex with, after the fact.”

“I think you think that makes you sound cool, but instead it sounds like they were purely transactional experiences.”

Drew huffed out a laugh. “No, I meant that I’m usually asleep.”

“Oh? Well, then, maybe I need to tire you out.”

Danny slid down and kissed just above Drew’s belly button, making him wriggle. He dotted a line of kisses up his torso, over his clavicles and into the tender skin of his neck. He sucked a kiss right at the juncture between Drew’s neck and shoulder, adding pressure to make it a love-bite. Drew made a kind of whimpering sound, tangling his fingers into Danny’s hair, scratching against his scalp. 

Danny proceeded to spend the next few hours finding other ways to make Drew moan and whimper, thoroughly enjoying himself in the process.

*

They went to sleep just before dawn, after sharing a quick shower that very nearly turned sexual, and moving to Danny’s bed. Danny awoke for a moment after getting a chime for Kurtis’ airport message, but fell back asleep tucked under Drew’s arm immediately after. 

Danny had forgotten that they’d made plans to have brunch with Gus and Eddy, so when there was a loud knocking on their door, he sprang awake, disoriented. He rolled off the bed, hopping into his jeans and his yellow striped T-shirt, sharing Drew’s look of abject panic as Gus yelled through the door. 

“I’ll sneak out, give you time to get ready,” Danny whispered, hurrying to the bathroom to check if he was in any way presentable. 

His hair was a mess and his lips were kiss-swollen and redder than usual, but he didn’t look as raw as he felt. He went back into the room, grabbed his phone and wallet while slipping on his shoes, waved goodbye as he opened the door a crack and met Gus and Eddy on the landing.

“Drew’s still sleeping,” Danny offered before anyone asked. “The con’s taken a lot out of him. How about we go to brunch and text him the location?”

A half hour later, Danny was sitting down to brunch with a cadre of other creators who’d had the same bright idea as them. Judging by blood-shot eyes and raspy voices, bleary blinks and slow responses, everyone had indulged in a late night and no small amount of drinking. Danny listened to the conversation as he swirled his stick in his coffee, creating patterns in the foam on top. He created two wide eyes and a broad smile, pictured it as Drew. 

“You’re in a suspiciously good mood,” Eddy observed. 

“I’ve had a good con,” Danny said, telling the truth, but not the whole truth. He didn’t know if Eddy could handle that.

“What was your favorite part?”

“My meet-and-greet,” Danny lied. “And I went to a fascinating lecture about the dangers of function creep. You?”

“I got to stream with a bunch of gamers from Europe and Australasia,” Eddy said. “I learned a lot of creative insults.”

“Like what?”

“Fuck-knuckle derro wanker.”

Danny laughed, finding it hard to catch his breath. “What? No one ever says that for real.”

“I heard it about thirty times and my ears rarely deceive me.”

“What does it _mean_?”

“Damned if I know, but I’m gonna use it regardless.”

Drew turned up just as people had started to complain that they wanted to order. Danny smiled, pulled the chair closest to him out as invitation, but Drew simply shook his head once in dismissal and sat on the other side of the circle. He became engrossed in a discussion with Mikaela, so Danny decided not to interrupt. He attempted to make eye-contact a few times, but Drew was never looking his way.

“This is the day when I always think I want VidCon to be bi-annual, ‘cause I forget about how anxiety-inducing and exhausting it is,” Danny said to Eddy after ordering food. 

“Do you regularly go to any other cons?”

“Not really. I’ve been to some comedy and improv workshops, and I went to a series of lectures on being self-employed shortly after college, but I save my convention-going for VidCon and VidCon alone.”

“It’s not your scene? I don’t know why, but I always thought you were more outgoing.”

“I can be. If I feel comfortable in a situation I’m pretty loquacious and I don’t have too much difficulty putting myself out there. But I think conventions are on another level than, say, a co-worker’s party. To be honest, though, it’s more like I forget? I get so stuck in my routine that I don’t think about expanding my network.”

“We’ve decided,” Gus interrupted loudly, addressing the entire group. “We’re going to the park. Bring your sense of childish wonder and joyous enthusiasm. The world of Disney awaits.”

“Do we have to?” Drew asked in his whiniest voice, which made Danny grin because they’d gone to Disney World together the year before and Drew had loved every second.

“It’s a small world after all, it’s a small world after all…” Mikaela and Diana started to sing, followed by everyone else in the group. 

Drew affected his grumpiest face and crossed his arms against his chest. 

“We’re going on a Disney extravaganza, babyyyy,” Danny cheered, raising his coffee cup and dinking it with Eddy’s. 

*

Danny wasn’t what he’d call a Mouse-head, but he also wasn’t _not_ into Disney. He and Nico had gone a couple of times while they’d been housemates in LA, and when their other childhood friends Tim and Laura had come to stay for a week’s vacation they’d been three nights in a row. This was due to a series of unfortunate events in which they’d missed the fireworks the first two times, but third time had been lucky.

Yeah, the lines were annoying, and double yeah, it was kitsch and cheesy, and triple yeah the screaming children, the harassed parents and the obnoxious teenagers were all inconveniences, but the rides were fun. 

They wandered around as a big group, deciding on what rides to queue for using majority rule, and piling on Disney merch. Danny had to fuck with his hair to get his Mickey Mouse ears to stay on, but he still looked okay in the myriad photos and videos everyone took. They asked a lovely old tourist couple to take group shots while everyone posed, delivering a range of styles from naughty school children, deadly serious Victorians, a K-Pop band, and hot influencers. Diana airdropped the photos to them all and Danny sent one to his family chat because he wanted to make his sister jealous.

He also took his patented, ‘I wear a yellow shirt today’ picture for his Instagram stories.

Throughout the day, Danny gravitated toward Drew, but he always became preoccupied somewhere else and pulled away. By the fifth time, Danny knew it was deliberate. He had half-formed notions of grabbing Drew’s sleeve and dragging him off somewhere private to talk, but he figured that’d be a little too conspicuous.

After a couple hours of walking around, the group went for another meal, and this time, Danny settled next to Drew before he could escape.

“Hi,” Danny said, pointedly, knocking Drew’s knee with his own.

Drew glanced at Danny, looked away. “Hello.”

“You doing okay?”

“I’m fine. You?”

“I’m okay.”

“All right, then.”

Danny felt a leaden ball dropping down into his stomach. Drew was acting distant, not like he didn’t want others to catch on to their closeness, but like he wanted to deny the closeness had ever been there in the first place. He was impersonal and guarded, not spending any longer in Danny’s vicinity than he had to.

After the fireworks, Danny felt overcome with a wave of exhaustion. He decided to go back to the hotel with Mikaela and Diana, who were leaving the next day. They’d asked the whole group, but no one else had expressed a desire to go. Danny stared at Drew for half a minute, willing him to meet his eyes, but he didn’t. 

That night, Danny waited for Drew to turn up to their freshly laundered and cleaned room. It got to 3:30 AM before Danny’s eyes slipped shut and he fell into a deep sleep. 

The next morning, it took a while before he realized what felt wrong with the room. Drew’s belongings were gone. He checked his phone, but there were no messages or voicemails. Danny knocked on Gus and Eddy’s door, thinking maybe Drew had relocated. He didn’t know what kind of excuse Drew would be able to give to justify it, but perhaps he’d make up some story about Danny hooking up with someone, or him losing a bet, or Dolphin Man usurping his rightful place in the hotel room.

“Is Drew here?” Danny asked, not wanting to bother with preamble.

Gus stepped back, gestured Danny into the room. “No, didn’t you hear?”

“Hear what?”

“He had to leave early. His flight got pushed forward.”

Danny had gotten rejected before. He’d had one night stands that he’d originally thought were going to evolve that had finished before they’d truly begun. None of those instances had hurt quite like this. 

“Weird,” Danny said, swallowing thickly. 

He didn’t know what to do with himself. He didn’t want to be around Gus and Eddy, but he also didn’t want to return to the hotel room. To gaze across the room and see Drew’s empty bed, the echoes of memories they’d made there. 

“I just remembered, I have an appointment,” Danny said, ignoring the stinging at the back of his eyes and taking three stabilizing breaths. “I’ll see you guys later.”

He walked around Anaheim for a while, deciding on the Packing House, scarfing down two waffle dogs and a street corn cup and agua fresca. Danny wouldn’t usually say he was the kind of guy who ate his feelings, but, well, he needed something to lighten the day, and this was giving him much needed nostalgia and filling up the emptiness he felt inside.

Danny was in pain, but he was also confused. He knew Drew didn’t like confrontation, was always more likely to go on the back foot and fade into the shadows rather than bring his concerns to light, but he was also someone who had a lot of integrity. And ditching him like this, without a single word of apology, was such a dick move. 

It’d been good. Danny hadn’t imagined that. Drew hadn’t been in any way an unenthusiastic participant. He’d been a bit shy. He’d been hesitant. But he’d initiated as many kisses as he’d received, and he’d maneuvered Danny where he wanted him, and he’d been the one to take the leap in the first place. 

Danny didn’t go back to the hotel until late into the night, packing his bag and checking in to his flight in advance. He texted Gus and Eddy to say he’d been waylaid by other friends, said sorry but he wouldn’t be able to hang until check out the next morning. He figured they wouldn’t miss him much, considering the mood he’d be in if he did grace them with his presence. Danny wasn’t always known as the life of the party, but he was regarded as a positive, upbeat personality, and he couldn’t install that façade this day. He didn’t have it in him to act like everything in his world was great. 

He wanted to. He wanted to be able to pretend that nothing was twisting up his insides. That he was his inalienable unflappable self, no flaps to ruffle. 

But, instead, his head pounded worse than the morning after this year’s first VidCon party, and his chest ached more than how it’d felt filming multiple dance scenes in one day, and now his tummy was sore too. It didn’t take a genius to realize his emotional turmoil was physically manifesting, making it impossible for Danny to focus on anything else.

He showered, messaged replies to Kurtis and Jenna, who’d sent him images of the weather that had greeted them back home, sent his family a checklist to ensure they helped him catalog his belongings so he didn’t leave anything behind in California, and tucked himself into bed.

Danny didn’t sleep. 

*

Back in Illinois, Danny’s first port of call was to retrieve Peanut from his parents’ place. She yipped happily when he bent down to pet her, licked his fingers and his nose. Danny kissed her cute little head and stroked her for several minutes, telling her what a good, beautiful girl she was. Matt was at the house, helping with their dad’s computer, and Danny gave him a loose hug from behind. 

“Oh shit, what’s happened?” Matt asked straight away, turning away from the screen to scan Danny up and down.

“Nothing. Can’t a brother give another brother a cuddle without getting interrogated?”

Matt narrowed his eyes. “In an ideal world. But I know you. And you have not willingly hugged me since you were in ninth grade.”

“We hug, like, every holiday season.”

“Because I wrap you up like a bear and don’t let you go. You never initiate it. Ever.”

Danny laughed, wrinkled his nose. “I’m okay. I’m fine. I’m tired. VidCon was a riot of sights and sounds and my brain’s a bit fried. But I’m still human.”

Matt continued peering at him, like trying to rearrange thousands of puzzle pieces, before he let the matter drop. Danny pulled up a chair and gave unsolicited advice on how to fix the computer, fulfilling his annoying baby brother role to a tee.

And Danny tried to go back to normal, over the next few weeks. He scripted, filmed and edited two videos for his main channel, one for his second channel. One of the videos was about VidCon, thanking fans for coming to see him and talking about the convention’s high points. One was a reaction to what had apparently gone down at a party that Danny hadn’t even heard about, in which the Dobre twins and the Stokes twins got into a fist-fight. Or perhaps it should be phrased ‘fist fights’, since it probably involved some symmetrical violence. The third video was a tier-list of the worst movies he’d reviewed on his channel, with it being a very tight contest. He figured if he opened the question up to Greg with a poll he’d have a more definitive answer, but unless they’d watched the actual movies themselves rather than the scenes he’d picked and chosen for comedic value, he didn’t think it’d be an accurate one.

He didn’t hear anything from Drew. Not a peep. Not a dicky-bird. Drew appeared to be giving all online content creation a wide berth. The only way Danny knew he was still alive was because Kurtis had referenced a chat they’d had and Danny had creeped on Drew’s twitter likes.

Danny went about his usual routine. He walked Peanut, he had dinner at his parents’ with their whole family. He worked out. He cooked delicious Hello Fresh meals. He video chatted with friends interstate and internationally, and caught up with his Illinois buddies in person. But he still felt miserable, most days. Still woke up with a sense of existential dread. Still lay in bed late at night staring at the ceiling, trying not to relive that night, that day, that morning.

Danny wondered how to recover from feeling heart-sore over the potential of a relationship as opposed to the real thing. How to reconcile his anger regarding Drew’s actions with how much he missed him. He wondered how to pick up all his broken pieces when some of them had shattered so fine they were like dust.

*

A month and a half had disappeared by the time Danny recognized he needed to talk to someone. He invited Tim and Laura over for a games night. It might’ve been bad form, to invite your best friends over with the ulterior motive of spilling your guts out to them, but he didn’t know how else to do it. He’d teared up the last time his mom had asked him how he was going and he’d had to cover it up with a fake sneezing fit – not because he believed in some archaic notion that men don’t cry, but because he knew she would worry about him an inordinate amount. 

Laura was first to arrive, bringing a bottle of wine and a cheese platter. Tim was literally three minutes later with beer and shortbread cookies.

“So, I wanted to tell you guys something,” Danny started when they were settled with drinks and food.

“Sounds sinister.”

“No, not sinister. It’s just, you’ve both asked me at different moments if I’m okay and I wanted to tell you that I don’t know the fraction of okay that I am, but I know it’s not one hundred percent.”

Tim removed his glasses, cleaned them on his shirt. “What’s the matter?”

“You remember Drew?”

“You are not the same person.”

“Right. We fooled around at VidCon and now he’s not talking to me.”

“Oh my God, quantify ‘fooled around’. You made out?” Laura asked, more of a squeal than a sentence.

“Uhm, I’m not gonna give you all the details, ‘cause it’s none of your business, but we did more than make out.”

Tim slid his glasses back on. “Why isn’t he talking to you? Did you get into an argument?”

“No, that’s just it. I thought everything had gone swimmingly. Like, in the ocean, against the currents, super impressive arm-strokes.”

“Gross.”

“I don’t get what went wrong.”

Danny recounted the whole situation, from the first moment to the last, not giving Laura all of the details she asked for, but more than he’d intended. Laura moved so he could lie across her legs, petted his hair as he talked. Tim tried to lighten the mood with jokes, but none of them were hitting. 

“It sounds like he’s freaking out that he shared a gay experience with you,” Laura said, sounding sad.

“That’s what I’ve been thinking,” Danny said. 

“It is a lot to take in, realizing you’re bi or gay,” Tim said. “Especially if all your previous relationships have been straight.”  


“Yeah, for sure. I mean, I don’t even know if _I’m_ bi.”

“ _Danny!?_ ” Laura exclaimed, with the maximum amount of emphasis anyone could put into a name.

“What?”

“Danny, I’ve known you nine years and I refuse to believe you’re that ignorant.”

“I don’t think being bisexual is a bad thing, I just—“

“No. _No._ I mean self-ignorant. I mean so far removed from understanding your own needs and desires that you would not recognize this in yourself.”

“Laura,” Tim said, shaking his head at her. He turned to Danny. “I have always thought you identified as bi, though, dude. And I’ve known you for nineteen years.”

Danny was flummoxed. Danny was perplexed. Danny was intelligent enough not to ask any more questions about why they’d decided on his sexuality before he had. When he thought about it, it made sense. He’d always assumed it was because he was completely secure in his heterosexuality that he became joyfully flustered when male acquaintances and friends flirted with him, but given how he’d been feeling about Drew for the past several months, and given how being with Drew had felt so perfect, and given how he was fairly sure he’d had romantic crushes on other guys before, the label worked. 

“Don’t get me wrong, sexuality’s complicated,” Laura said, backtracking somewhat from her consternation. “And obviously you don’t have to identify a certain way just because I think you should. But I’ve always thought of you as preternaturally self-aware.”

“I think we’ve all discovered that I am not,” Danny replied with a small smile, wanting to convey his lack of offence. 

“Do you love him?” Tim asked, because he didn’t shy away from asking the difficult questions. 

“I don’t know. I think I could. I think, if he wanted it, I would be more than happy to be his person, you know? To be the one who always had his back. But it’s clear he doesn’t want it, so I feel like I’m in this state of limbo. I should move on, but the bar is set so low, I can’t get under.”

“Danny,” Laura said again, this time her tone completely different. She caressed his jaw, pressed a kiss to his forehead. 

“How do I tell him that it’s okay if he’s not interested in doing anything like we did at VidCon ever again? That I miss his friendship more than anything else?”

“You call him and say those exact words?” Tim suggested. 

“Have you called him?” Laura asked. 

“No. The onus is on him to contact me, given the whole ghosting situation, don’t you think? Plus, I didn’t know if I could handle him not picking up.”

They ended up playing a couple of games after all, neither Laura nor Tim taking pity on him enough to allow him to win. He was sufficiently diverted for a few hours and he felt like a burden had been lifted from his shoulders, now that he had voiced the truth. It helped, having others acknowledge the inherent pain of the situation, to have his oldest friends comforting him. 

“I hope you know it’s not a reflection on you,” Tim said later that night, clinking his beer against Danny’s and stuffing three cookies into his mouth. He spoke around crumbs. “You’re in the best person tier for everyone who meets you. You’re smart, you’re kind, and I _am_ straight, but even I can see that you’re very hot.”

“I told Drew it was a tier and he didn’t believe me,” Danny replied, gesticulating wildly. “Thanks. It means a lot to me that you think that about me. Especially the hotness.”

“The heat!”

“The flames!”

“Are you gonna be human thesauruses all night, because if so I’ve gotta go,” Laura interjected. 

“Awwww, don’t be a spoilsport. Join us.”

Laura looked like she was going to refuse for a beat and then in her most dramatic voice intoned, “The fiery depths!”

Danny fell asleep within ten minutes that night, the quickest he’d managed since VidCon. Peanut was snuggled against his side, snoring softly. His weighted blanket pressed him down against the sheets and mercifully the temperature was the ideal level of cool but not freezing. He woke up feeling refreshed. He was reminded that when Pandora’s box had been opened, alongside fear and pain and heartbreak, hope had been released into the world. He wasn’t happy yet, but he could be, in time. 

*

Over the next few weeks, Danny wrote a song entitled, ‘It’s Okay to be Alone’ and prepared to shoot its music video. The backing track was a bop and probably the most catchy Lonely Island-style song he’d produced in a long time. His favorite lyric was, “Because you got nobody then no body puts its weight on you, that might sound like it’s tragic when you’re hard-up and your balls are blue, but I’m here to communicate that lonely is a state of mind, it’s all right to be all alone ‘cause that means you’ll be on your grind.” 

It was both incredibly ironic, and not ironic at all. 

This kind of work was the ultimate in pulling him away from the deep, dark recesses of his brain. He had multiple, layered logistics to work out, from shooting locations, to equipment, to who would best work as his camera operator. He had to organize audio playback, lighting, costumes, the whole shebang. It was involving, and exhausting, and the type of creative freedom that could be entirely attributed to the platform that he loved. 

The day of the shoot was a mild Fall day. Danny had commissioned his friend David to help set up the lighting, and Charles to work as director. Josh was one of his camera operators, along with Laura, who’d specifically taken the day off work to lend a hand. More than half the shots were exterior shots, but into the early hours of the evening they filmed the interiors, Laura insisting on adding eyeliner to make his eyes pop and add to the hypocritically emo slant of the song. 

The song and the video were a rousing success. The video hit 21 on the trending page and Danny gained two thousand new subscribers over the span of five hours, which was totally amazing. Danny was amazed. He was never able to predict what would do well when he took these risks, but it gratified him that this one paid off. He uploaded behind the scenes footage to his second channel and spent hours on his socials, watching the praise pour in.

When creativity was met with positivity it was the best feeling in the world.

*

Danny’s phone chimed at 3 PM the next day. Although he regularly suggested to his followers that they click the bell icon so they could get notified about his videos, he only had notifications on for a few of his subscriptions. 

Danny dropped his phone. He fumbled with it as he picked it up, having an unusual amount of difficulty with the lock-screen, but finally he was back where he’d been before, Drew’s thumbnail and title blaring at him from his screen.

He choked back an incredulous laugh, balled the hand not holding his phone into a fist.

“You son-of-a-bitch.”


	3. Chapter 3

Drew’s thumbnail was him sitting bathed in pink, purple and blue lighting. The title was “Hi and Bi”.

Danny collapsed onto his couch, clicked into Drew’s video. It didn’t even occur to him to watch it on his TV. 

“Hey Guy, it’s been a while. How are you? _Oh?_ Yeah, it be that way sometimes. I get it.”

Seeing Drew and hearing his voice again after all this time stung. It was like a paper cut being reopened on accident. Drew looked tired. His hair was longer and curving down the side of his forehead. His eyes had dark circles. He looked drawn, thinner than usual, like he’d had a rough few months. Despite Danny’s instincts to want to hate him, he couldn’t. He was curious as to what could’ve happened that would affect Drew this way.

“So, you’ve probably clicked on this video to go straight to the comment section and mock me relentlessly for my humongous spelling error, but joke’s on you, I once got an A in a spelling test. And a D, and a Z, and an E. My spelling word was adze. Anyway, my point is, I intended to spell the ‘bi’ in my title the way I did, because I’m coming out. I’m bisexual.”

Danny had to pause the video, breathing heavily and trembling. He was overcome with so many conflicting emotions. He was proud of Drew for coming out, angry that he hadn’t heard from him in months, and missing him more than words could articulate. He would have given almost anything to have been with him, off camera, providing moral support. Danny braced himself and pressed play, digging his nails into his palm. 

“I’m sorry my video isn’t as phenomenal as Eugene Lee Yang’s. And I’m sorry it’s taken me this long to have the courage and openness to let you know. I’ve never been ashamed of being bisexual, but I have worried about how others would perceive me once they had this knowledge. It’s something that’s been heavy on my mind a lot this year and I figured it was _high time_ I share this side of myself.”

Danny lay down. It sounded like Drew had known and accepted he was bisexual for years. Not since VidCon. Not after their encounter. But before. It wasn’t because he was reeling from an epiphany, or freaking out over something new, or dealing with internalized bigotry. 

It wasn’t because he’d had sex with a guy. It was because it was _Danny_ , specifically. A hollow feeling settled into Danny’s chest at this revelation. He squeezed his eyes shut as the rest of the video continued to play, listening rather than watching. His eyes were stinging and sore, but he couldn’t switch it off at this point, was desperate to know how the video would end. 

“If you’re sitting there wondering ‘oh no, does this mean Drew’s now going to be more flamboyant?’ the answer I have for you is: maybe? What would be the problem with that? I’m not a fundamentally different person from who I was in my last video, I am, in fact, exactly the same, but I’m more comfortable with the idea of loosening the limitations I was imposing on myself. So my videos might change a little, I might start showing more facets of my personality, and if you don’t like that, that’s okay, there are other YouTubers and I won’t hold you back from exploring their content.”

The respect Danny felt at these words wasn’t even grudging, even though his continued listening to them was. He understood Drew’s point of view, appreciated his bravery in sharing it. The past few weeks he’d been feeling the same way, trying to understand how his own acceptance of his sexuality had affected his manner, his behavioral quirks, his pre-conceived notions. 

“If you’re sitting there wondering, ‘But Drew, where’ve you been for the past four months?’, the truth is, I’ve been in my house this entire time. I needed a break so I took it. Sorry. Rest assured I _will_ be uploading on a more regular schedule from now on – about as regular as I’ve always been -- which, if you’re a Little Stinker, you may have realized is whenever I want.”

Danny realized he would have to unsubscribe from Drew’s channel and tell YouTube not to recommend it if he was to have any kind of peace in the foreseeable future. The thought of seeing him popping up on his main page every week had his stomach churning. 

“I’d like to end this video on a piece of advice. A famous poet once said ‘Tonight, I want all of you tonight, give me everything tonight, for all we know we might not get tomorrow, let’s do it tonight.’ What I infer from this exquisite phrasing is that life is too short to not allow yourself to be and do what you want, so long as you’re not harming others. Allowing yourself to share your truth with the world is terrifying, but it’s also freeing. I want you to know that there are people who will love you for who you are. They will recognize you as being more than simply your race, or gender, or sexuality, but they will also acknowledge and respect that these shape you, that they’re part of your identity. You should never feel pressured into coming out, but if you want to, if it’s right for you, it feels incredible. Thanks for watching.”

It was a good video. It was exactly the kind of video Danny would’ve attributed to Drew had he ever thought, in a million years, that Drew would announce something so deeply personal to his YouTube audience. He didn’t know how to feel because he felt everything. He wiped away the tears that had spilled down his face, dragged his forearm against his nose. His head hurt. His chest was tight. It felt like his pulse was throbbing harder than it ever had before in his wrists, in his neck, up into his jaw. 

He scrolled through his phone until he found Drew’s contact. He doubted he’d receive anything back, but he knew he’d constantly word and reword his response if he didn’t say something sooner rather than later.

‘Amazing video, Drew,’ Danny texted. ‘I’m proud of you.’

There was only one thing he would be able to do to clear his mind and not dwell. Danny changed, pulled on his running shoes, and left the house. He didn’t have a clear direction. He started off running his usual route, but took a detour toward his childhood home after a half hour. He listened to the H3 Podcast as he ran, trying to block out any and all internal chatter. It was comforting, being in his old haunts again. He ran around the skate park he’d shot videos in, up the street where Tim had lived through elementary school. He ran past what had been his home until high school. 

He was about six miles from home when his phone rang. Danny didn’t think to check the caller ID before answering. 

“Hello?”

“What the fuck, Danny?” Drew said, sounding pissed.

Danny sucked in deep breaths, stretched out his calves. His heart was already beating hard, but he could swear it had gotten louder the second he’d heard Drew’s voice, cacophonous in his ears. “Huh?”

“I haven’t heard from you in months, but suddenly you’re proud of me? Fuck you.”

“Fuck _you!_ ” Danny said, sitting on the curb, resting his arms on his knees. “I haven’t heard from you either.”

“Yeah, well, can you really blame me after what happened?”

“Actually, yeah, I can. You could’ve tried talking it through.”

“I didn’t have the strength for that,” Drew said, sounding defeated, mirroring how Danny felt.

“Clearly. But you had the strength to cuss me out when I was trying to be supportive. Nice.”

“You think your condescending fucking ‘I’m proud of you’ is supportive? Wow. You really aren’t who I thought you are.” 

Drew sounded full of vitriol, practically spitting acid. Danny winced.

“Likewise. I have never been so disappointed in someone I thought I cared about.”

The call ended. Danny stared at his phone through bleary eyes. He felt sick. He had always thought of Drew as one of the inherently kindest people he’s ever met. Yes, he made a living by roasting people for comedy, but his targets were never vulnerable and he rarely crossed the line. Danny had liked to joke with Drew that he was the nastier version of himself, but it had always been in jest, because he knew – or he thought he’d known – that Drew was pure-hearted. Drew was socially conscious, he was politically minded, and he was constantly defending the little guy. But apparently that didn’t appear to extend to interpersonal relationships.

Danny trudged home, soul-sore and heart-weary. By the time he arrived all he wanted to do was face-plant into his bed, wrap himself up away from the world, become unconscious. Somehow, his body let him do just that.

*

After the first couple of weeks post-VidCon that Drew had been radio silent, Kurtis had asked Danny about it. Danny had said that he thought Drew was dealing with personal issues and left it at that. In the ensuing week, post-altercation, Danny was a little more honest. Or, at least, the honest he wished was true.

“Hey, Danny. Do you know what’s up with Drew? He hasn’t answered any of my texts.”

“I don’t know and I don’t care.”

“Has something happened between you two?”

“You could say that,” Danny said, setting up his camera and microphone in preparation to film. “Drew decided we’re no longer friends, and I decided to agree.”

“Why?”

“If it’s okay, Kurtis, I don’t wanna talk about it.”

“All right, but I’m here for you when you need it, man.”

“I appreciate it.”

Danny had spent the week wallowing, cycling through his tried and true self-care strategies to find the one that would ease the ache. He’d concluded there wasn’t one and had begun stacking them; drinking Limoncello LaCroix while researching easy-to-grow fruits and vegetables, idly strumming his guitar as he watched reruns of his favorite comedy shows, and listening to The Lonely Island while simultaneously watching porn and jacking off. None of the combinations had been one hundred percent effective and he was worried he’d awakened some kind of latent kink involving Andy Samberg’s voice. 

He’d spent the day before with his family, helping them clear his parents’ yard. Everyone had noticed that he was more muted than usual, trying to tease him into interacting more, but no one pushed. He thought Matt had had a hand in that – he’d always been the best at reading Danny’s moods, and as big brothers went, he wasn’t pure evil. Danny had done as he’d been asked, concentrating on the task at hand, cutting down branches and feeding them through a hired wood chipper. It had been cathartic, to watch the solid wood churn and crunch against the whirling blades inside the chipper, whittling into easy to dispose fragments. 

Danny had always coped with life stressors in one of two ways. He’d crash and burn, crumpling into a heap that turned nocturnal and could barely feed itself, or he’d work his ass to the bone, attempting to do too much in too little time. It would be all too easy to let his emotions take over and send him spiraling down, but he figured it’d be better to be more productive and slip into his overwork self-destructive modes rather than the underwork ones, so he scripted and planned several videos and scheduled out his days. 

Danny loved creating. He loved flexing his comedy skills and making other people laugh. It held a different flavor when he was doing it to cope with the drudgeries of life. His jokes were even darker than some of his earlier work, his tone more biting. He was mindful about the subject of his videos. He called out behavior, not personality. He ensured he wasn’t punching down. It didn’t seem to matter how often he asked Greg to leave others alone, there were always a few people who didn’t listen, and when his potential audience held millions of people, that amounted to an imperial fuckton who would harass another – even if _they_ thought it was all jokes. With great viewership came great responsibility. But his last three videos had acquired some new fans who liked this slightly edgier, razor sharp humor, while his existing ones had left comments that suggested they were concerned about him, or hoping this wasn’t a permanent change. 

Danny had no illusions that everyone who followed him cared overly much about him as a person. He knew this because it was the way of things and he’d experienced it before: creators made content, and when they were no longer making the kind of content the audience wanted, the audience moved onto someone else. But he knew he had a core, loyal audience that had been with him for years. They were the fans who’d been patrons when he’d had a Patreon, who had bought his first, mediocre merch. They had been with him since before he’d declared Greg the fastest growing army on the internet. He also had a newer group of fans who enjoyed any content he chose to create, who supported him no matter what. He didn’t want to upset his pre-existing fanbase, but he was also finding this edge to his comedy liberating. Some of the sheen of his ‘generally nice guy’ persona was wearing off, leaving in its place his more bitter side. It wasn’t that Danny had ever pretended to be anyone he wasn’t, but people contained multitudes, and he’d always preferred to sanitize himself before, show his glossier, more polished side.

The latest song Danny had been working on was a scathing indictment entitled ‘Out for the Clout’. He sent the draft to Laura who replied with a short sharp “No!” and called a moment later.

“No, Danny,” Laura said as soon as Danny accepted the call.

“Is it because of the rhyming title, or… ?”

“You know why.”

Danny sighed. “Yeah, but I was hoping there was something salvageable. I go into the history of queerbaiting and how disingenuous and harmful it can be to represent yourself one way when your actions tell a different story.”

“I heard the song, and that might be what you think you’re doing, but it really doesn’t come across that way.”

“You’ve gotta admit it’s a banger and a bop and a bippity-boo, though, right?”

Laura huffed a laugh. “I’m sure you’ll have a hit when you repurpose it. So I guess I don’t have to ask how you’re doing.”

“Nope. Everything is A-okay here in Gonzalezville. I’ve got three videos filmed, ready to post whenever I want, so my self-worth is on cloud nine, and I’m working on several songs, not just the one I sent you.”

“And your mental state?”

“Sharp as a tack and just as painful.”

“I’m sorry. Did you wanna come over? I have to study, but you could help? Quiz me, get me to explain my reasoning, like the good old days, but with the roles reversed?”

Danny went through his document of video notes hastily cobbled together and half-typed. Before Laura had replied to his unspoken question, he’d been working solidly, but now that he looked at the products of his labors, he could see that they needed finessing. He could leave that work for another day, but he wanted to keep fleshing out his concept. Lately he felt like if he let an idea sit for too long he’d end up scrapping it entirely. 

“I’m kinda busy, sorry. Rain-check?”

“Against my better judgement I’m going to say all right, but please tell me you’ll hang out soon. It feels like weeks since I’ve seen you.”

“I will, I’m just… I’m on a roll. I’ve had so much creative inspiration recently.”

“Danny ---”

“Don’t say it. Please. Don’t turn this one positive into a negative.”

“I didn’t need to, did I? You already know.”

Danny brushed his hand through his hair, rubbed at the stress-knot that had made the back of his neck its home. He knew she had his best interests at heart, he was aware he was at the tippy top of a slippery slope, but he didn’t want Laura to be the voice of reason right now. 

“I love you,” Danny offered, because he was tempted to tell Laura that there were times he didn’t like her very much.

“I love you too,” Laura said. “Maybe you could change your song to ‘Bout for the Clout’ and make it a dated reference to the whole boxing YouTuber trend?”

“You are an actual genius. I wouldn’t even have to change a couple of the lines about homoerotic tension.”

They said their goodbyes. Danny went back to his typing as well as opening up the lyrics he’d written for the song he was going to radically overhaul. He listened to the demo he’d produced, working through the beats and rhythm as he rewrote lines. It was next to impossible to think about anything else while he was occupied on perfecting his craft, and that was the way he liked it.

*

Danny started going to parties of friends and acquaintances, traveling to different states when he had the opportunity. He was working hard and he wanted to party hard too. 

When Danny saw Drew across the room he initially assumed he’d made him up inside his head. But then he saw that he was standing there conversing with Eddy and he realized it wasn’t a hallucination or a hologram, it was Drew, in the flesh. He supposed he shouldn’t have been this shocked. They knew and had collaborated with many of the same people and as far as Danny was aware, none of those people knew what had gone down and therefore wouldn’t see the need to warn either of them that they’d both be attending the party. This wasn’t like a conventional break-up where one partner won the friendship group and the other a life-time’s worth of bitterness, or a less conventional one where the friends were divided and clung to either partner, or a completely unconventional one where everyone was able to get along. Only Kurtis had sensed that there was an issue. Eddy and Gus had referenced Drew more than once while Danny had Skyped with them and he had done everything in his power not to react. He had to assume the same was true on Drew’s part. 

Drew looked better than he had in his coming out video, though that might have been because he was laughing at something Eddy had said. His hair was well-kempt, he didn’t look as tired, and his energy was relaxed. Danny felt the traitorous thump of his heart speeding. Despite it all, the attraction was still present, barely simmering beneath the surface. Danny remembered what it had been like to kiss those sweetly curving lips, to fit himself tightly against the long lines of Drew’s legs. 

He grabbed a jello shot and downed it in one, then decided he wanted to see if the different colors held different flavorings and tried three more in quick succession. They were pretty tasty and after a while Danny had forgotten entirely about Drew and was moving among the crowd making connections and winning friends. Or, rather, that’s what he was convincing himself. 

He danced in a group of people, loosened up and began to have a good time. The music was the perfect mixture of dance, pop and R&B, the kind of thing Danny liked to work out to, and he moved where the rhythm took him. He even pulled out the Dying Squid as a joke, flailing his arms fluidly and dramatically. 

By the time the party was winding down, Danny was in the frame of mind where he didn’t want it to, starting chants with his new friends that they should take the party somewhere else. Unfortunately, he was supposed to be staying at Gus’ house, which is where the party was taking place, so these plans never came to fruition. 

Danny didn’t know what time it was when everyone who wasn’t staying had cleared out. He brushed his teeth and drank water like he was instructed to by Eddy. He gathered his overnight bag and shuffled into the bedroom he’d been assigned. And he very nearly collapsed onto the air mattress until he realized there was someone else in the room.

Danny’s heart dropped from his rib cage to his intestines when he locked eyes with Drew, who was sitting on a cot on the opposite side of the room thumbing through his phone. Drew’s expression went dark and he clenched his jaw like he was holding back a tirade.

“Guess they didn’t tell you about having a roommate either,” Danny said, more to break than tension than anything else. 

“No.”  


Danny decided not to care about propriety and unzipped and pulled down his jeans, attempting to fold them neatly and place them on a nearby chair. His fingers wouldn’t obey his commands, but that was okay, it wasn’t like he was overly concerned with wrinkles. 

Danny perched himself precariously on the air mattress, proceeded to remove his contacts. He fumbled with that task too, cursing under his breath as he dropped his case. Drew stepped over and held it open for him, adding the solution when Danny fucked that up too. Danny mumbled a ‘thanks’, placing his contacts in as carefully as he was able. As Drew handed the case back their fingers brushed, and Danny almost jumped at the touch, glancing at Drew’s face, which was blurry to him now. There was an unrecognizable expression on Drew’s face, not just because Danny had misplaced his glasses. 

Drew went back to his side of the room, turned away as he changed his shirt. Danny had been going to lie down, but he thought he should have more water, so he sipped it slowly. 

“I just wanna know one thing,” Danny lied. There were thousands of things he wanted to know. Questions that had written and rewritten themselves nearly every night in his mind. “Why didn’t you just tell me you didn’t want me?”

“What do you mean?” Drew asked, sounding genuinely confused. 

“I get that it was, like, a one-night deal for you. What plays at VidCon stays at VidCon kinda shit. But you could’ve warned me beforehand, or talked it out in the morning, or, like, even fuckin’ texted me about it a day later, Drew. If I’d known before, I could’ve made a calculated decision. Like, I’m fuckin’ great at math. I could’ve braced myself for it, I don’t know. If I’d known after I’d’ve understood and we could’ve stayed friends. I’m not a child.”

Drew was frowning at him. Danny couldn’t see entirely clearly and he could see that. “What the fuck? You’re acting like _I_ ditched _you_.”

“You did.”

Drew was shaking his head and following the motion hurt Danny’s brain. “Danny, you were the one who went fleeing from the room with his tail between his legs like he regretted every life choice he’d ever made. You were the one who abandoned me in, like, ten seconds flat as soon as our friends arrived on the scene.”

“Because we said we’d go to brunch. I told you I was giving you time to get ready. I didn’t think we’d really wanna let everyone know about us the immediate morning after.”

“You got dressed, ran out of the room, and left me to make my own way to the cafe. I didn’t even know where you’d gotten to. It was a fuck and fly situation.”

“I texted you where we were.”

“No, you didn’t.”

Danny was about to argue further when the contents of his stomach decided they needed their time to shine and his chin started to get a heavy sensation as he crawled, scrabbling about for a nearby waste paper basket. He threw up, his esophagus burning as the remnants of jello shots and beer spewed out of his mouth. There was a hand on his back, rubbing in slow circles. It was warm and comforting and so, so welcome. Danny swiped his hand at the corner of his mouth, grimaced at the slimy residue.

He tipped to the side, leaned against a nearby dresser. “I can’t believe you don’t want this,” he murmured. “I’m clearly a catch.”

Drew held a full glass of water out, steadied Danny’s arm as he took it. “You’re too drunk for this conversation,” he said. “But we’re definitely having it in the morning. For now, lie down, grab some sleep.”

Danny did as he was told, trying to muddle through what Drew had said. It didn’t make sense. Then again, nothing did at this current moment, and it caused too much pain thinking logically enough to make it. After being dimly aware that Drew had pulled a blanket over him, he fell into an almost coma-like oblivion, incognizant to the world.

*

Danny expected Drew to be gone in the morning. For the night before to have been a fever dream brought on by alcohol abuse and wishful thinking. But Drew was there, giving him a look of sympathy as Danny rolled off the mattress and inhaled his glass of water in two quick gulps. He felt elated and like shit all at the same time. 

“So I’m feeling like there’s been some kind of fuck-up here,” Drew said with a raised eyebrow.

“Just a monumental one,” Danny said. “You really thought I regretted… us?”

“Yeah. You really thought I didn’t want you?”

“Yeah.”

Drew blinked, setting his jaw like he’d come to a decision about something. He moved, coming to sit next to Danny on the floor, positioned so they could speak face to face, but were touching. He took Danny’s hand between his, gently tracing his fingers. 

Danny’s pulse kicked up. Emotions were swirling through his mind, his body, concentrated on the spot where skin met skin. 

“I sometimes have trouble dealing with real human emotions,” Drew said.

“As opposed to real Wookie emotions, which aren’t troublesome at all.”

Drew rolled his eyes, but the corner of his lips ticked up. “I thought you were undergoing a speed version of gay panic. I’m not good with confrontation. I didn’t have the capacity to talk it over that day. I left you a note. I’m guessing you never got it.”

“No. What’d it say?”

“It said that I wanted you to Skype me when I was back in Orlando. That I wouldn’t push you if you didn’t want, but that I thought we should talk. When you never called, I figured that was it, that was my answer to the questions I never asked.”

“I’m also bad with confrontation,” Danny admitted. “When you left, I felt rejected. I wanted to text you, but I also didn’t, because I didn’t want that conversation, didn’t think I could handle it. I didn’t know you knew you were bi, so I thought you were freaking out.”

“I mean, I was, but for the exact opposite reasons you thought I was.”

“Fuck.” Danny squeezed his eyes shut. “So all this time?”

“I thought you’d run away from me and you thought I’d run away from you.”

“You know what this means, don’t you?”

“We are the same person,” Drew lamented.

“We could’ve been fucking all this time,” Danny countered. 

“What, like every day?”

“Every hour.”

Drew laughed, knocked his head against Danny’s shoulder. Danny lifted his free hand, raked it through Drew’s hair, increasing the contact between them. Touching Drew again was the balm to a scratched soul. Danny wanted more than anything to kiss Drew, tell him in actions what he couldn’t say in words, but he couldn’t do that until he’d brushed his teeth, gargled Listerine about sixteen times, showered and shaved. 

“I missed you,” Danny said, heartfelt. 

Drew looked up, took the hand he was still holding and kissed Danny’s knuckles. “I missed you too.”

“I’m kind of angry you thought I’d do that to you,” Danny said with no heat. “I spent that whole day at Disneyland trying to get close to you.”

“In retrospect, I can see that, but at the time I thought you were, like, testing your attraction to me, proving to yourself you didn’t feel anything. I’m kind of angry you thought I’d disappear on you like that without explaining.”

“In hindsight, I should have bombarded you with messages and demanded you speak with me.”

“It’s a good job we both wear corrective eye wear, or we’d be completely blind all the time,” Drew said, sardonic. 

“Wakey wakey, hands off snakies,” Gus’ voice yelled with a pound on the door. 

Danny jumped, but closer into Drew rather than further away, tangling them up even more. He pressed a quick kiss to Drew’s jaw, rubbing his nose against the soft skin by his ear. “Come back home with me,” he said, quiet. “I feel like we have a lot more to say.”

“Why won’t you come home with me to Orlando?”

“You literally just answered your own query within the question itself.”

Danny smiled, kissed Drew’s jaw again before finally pulling away and gathering his things together so he could ask Gus if he could have a hot shower to wash off the previous day’s mistakes, musk, and muck. 

*

Kissing Drew again was like having a lot to say and wanting to stretch it out over weeks and months and years. Danny was slow with it, methodical, opening his mouth increment by increment until they were kissing deeply. Drew pushed him into the back of his couch with steady, gentle force, tilting his head up to adjust the angle. He was straddling his thighs, exerting his extra height to his advantage. Danny moaned embarrassingly loudly, causing them both to pause and giggle. 

“I’m ridiculously into you,” Danny said, kissing Drew again twice in quick succession.

“Not yet, but you could be later,” Drew replied, impish. 

“You can’t just say things like that when we’re fully clothed. My dick’s gonna catch on the inside of my zipper and then we’ll both be sorry.”

“Oh, okay, I won’t say things like that,” Drew said, mock-seriously. He slid his hand over the bulge in Danny’s jeans, rubbed. “The last thing I want to do is cause you pain.” 

“Why did that sound ironic?”

“Everything I say sounds ironic, you know this about me by now.”

“I feel like we both think we know each other well, but that we don’t, really,” Danny mused. 

Drew nodded, shifted until he was alongside Danny rather than above him, gazed at Danny, considering. “I want to learn everything about you,” he said. “I think I have some misconceptions.”

“What did you want to know?”

“How did you keep creating incredible content when you were as miserable as me?”

“It was because I was miserable, not despite it. It was the only thing holding me together. Is that why you took your hiatus? You were miserable?”

“Of course. My heart had just been broken, Danny.”

Danny kissed Drew again to sweeten his teasing. “So you do like me, then?”

“Now you’re just fishing. What is it you want me to say? That I love you? That when I thought I’d have to live the rest of my life without you I felt like a six-day week, a five-string guitar? Fuck you. I refuse.”

Danny kissed a trail down to Drew’s neck, nipped and sucked a love bite. He slid his hands up Drew’s shirt, felt the warm expanse of his back. Danny stroked his fingers up Drew’s spine vertebra by vertebra, sucking and sucking a hickie until he could feel his trembling.

“Jesus Christ, Danny,” Drew groaned, strung-out and long-voweled.

“I wanna learn everything about you too,” Danny said. “And I’ve always been better with practical application rather than theory.”

They spent the rest of the evening fooling around. Danny didn’t have the words to articulate the happiness he felt, could only express it through touch. He tried to communicate all these newfound feelings of joy, relief, acceptance, but it probably came across as horniness. He wasn’t mad about it. He felt that way too. And having Drew there, willing to explore with him, made everything right in the world. 

Drew had only taken two changes of clothes to LA, intending to go back home after attending a comedy show and Gus’ party, so the next afternoon Danny lent him his yellow striped shirt. He looked good, bright and fresh, especially when Danny rolled the hems of the sleeves up, showing off more of his upper arms. Danny felt a visceral thrill at seeing Drew literally wrapped up in something signifying Danny’s possession. 

“I don’t wanna be one of those cringey couples who monetize their relationship,” Drew said. “But I have a feeling if we posted stories saying ‘I wear a yellow shirt today’ to our Instagrams we’d have a lot of fan reaction.”

“I can’t believe you’re already thinking about this like a marketing gimmick,” Danny joked. “Damn, and _I’m_ seen as the ruthless business-minded one.”

“We don’t have to --” Drew started.

“I want to,” Danny interrupted, thinking he’d need to be more open from now on, more inclined to let his vulnerable side show. “I think it’s an excellent idea.”

They took several pictures, posted the best and worst ones, needing to turn off their phones when they wouldn’t stop notifying them of an overwhelming response. For the rest of the day, Danny allowed himself to enjoy his free time. They chatted, workshopped and goofed around. Danny shared some of the material he was working on and Drew laughed a gratifying amount. 

They ended up in bed again a couple of hours later, but neither of them seemed to mind.

*

Danny had grown to love the chill of the crisp Illinois wind as he took Peanut for a walk among the colorful foliage, indulgent as she crashed through various leaf piles of orange, brown and red. He’d gotten used to bringing Peanut along for more directed walks rather than random excursions, having a set destination in mind. 

It was coming to Winter, but the days were still mild, and Danny reveled in getting to experience it, ensuring he only gave himself a four day work week. 

The coffee shop was busy when Danny entered, Peanut safely ensconced in his hold. He glanced around at unfamiliar faces, all of varying age ranges, before his eyes settled on Drew, Tim and Laura in the corner. Drew immediately perked up, stepping over and reeling Danny in for a quick kiss. 

“Hey, I got your order,” Drew said, taking Peanut from his arms and swapping her for Danny’s second favorite beverage after LaCroix.

“Thanks. I checked that your video had finished uploading before I came out.”

“Thank you, darling,” Drew said with a small grin.

“See, you keep trying these pet names thinking I’ll find them sickly sweet, but little do you know I love every second,” Danny retorted, rolling his eyes. “There’s no such thing as too saccharine, babyyy, I have a mouth full of sweet teeth and I won’t mind if they all fall out.”

“Good, because really I just like letting the world know you’re my sweetheart.”

Tim and Laura both made gagging sounds, and Danny and Drew grinned widely at them. They spent the next couple of hours shooting the shit and edging ever closer to each other until it was hard to tell where one started and the other ended – exactly the way they liked it.


End file.
